


Let's Play

by snsk



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fantasy elements, M/M, Time Travel, metaphors about things (tm)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-20 01:49:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5987985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snsk/pseuds/snsk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a Saturday, and Dan rolled over and Phil wasn’t in bed anymore, which wasn’t unusual. When he’d recovered enough wakefulness to stagger out of bed and venture into the kitchen, he found Phil there making coffee, which was.</p><p>This was due to the fact that the person making coffee in their kitchen was not Phil at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's Play

_now I see by the river a staircase that shouldn’t be there_  
_though now I feel like I can go back_  
_though now I feel like I’m on time_  
_no matter how I add it up, it’s never enough*_

**~*~**

 

It was a Saturday.

Dan woke up with the _knowledge_ of it being Saturday firmly lodged into his head; it was like reading an article or watching a documentary and hours later, you’d remember a random fact like _A pig’s orgasm lasts 30 minutes_ , or _There are 15 people named Donut in the US_.

It was a Saturday, and Dan rolled over and Phil wasn’t in bed anymore, which wasn’t unusual. When he’d recovered enough wakefulness to stagger out of bed and venture into the kitchen, he found Phil there making coffee, which was.

This was due to the fact that the person making coffee in their kitchen was not Phil at all.

“Hey, babe,” definitely not-Phil said, smiling, which cemented it for Dan. It wasn’t like Phil never called him babe; he did it rarely, sure, but always with that thread of irony, that thread of _we are not these people anymore, but I still remember_. Not-Phil said it all sincere and chirpy and affectionate, and held out a cup of coffee. Another thing that made it not Phil at all: Dan could only see one mug, which meant Phil hadn’t had his coffee yet, which meant he should not have been smiling like he currently was, bright and wide.

“Am I dreaming?” Dan said. It occurred to him that this could be one of the dreams he used to have when he was younger after a gaming binge: too vivid, oddly controllable. Not-Phil tilted his head to one side.

“No,” he said. “No. You’re not dreaming. Have some coffee, Dan.”

Dan didn’t particularly want to drink the coffee. He didn’t accept the mug. “You’re not Phil,” he told him.

“Yes I am,” not-Phil insisted.

“No you’re not,” Dan said.

“I am!”

Dan sighed. “I know you’re not.” He knew it like he’d known it was Saturday, like he knew his own name. “Also, your feet aren’t quite touching the ground.”

The thing which wasn’t Phil looked down. It was, in fact, hovering about an inch above Dan and Phil’s kitchen tiles.

“Oh, damn,” it said, and stepped forward. Dan felt a brief prickling of fear, but then Phil’s familiar edges blurred, and Dan could see it now: expensively-cut suit, feathery wings that looked pixelated in their dark vividness. Still wearing Phil’s dark fringe and six foot frame, but eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, now an entirely different being.

“Alright,” it said. “You got me. Fine.”

“Where’s Phil?” Dan asked.

“Listen.” It had a vaguely American accent, but an accent that just sounded American, not like it was from any particular part of America that you could identify. An accent that someone who’d only ever watched old Westerns would think an American accent sounded like. “You could have fake Phil.”

“I don’t want fake Phil,” Dan said.

“Could you just hear me out?” it snapped. It furiously sipped some of the coffee from Dan’s mug, like Dan was severely exasperating it. “First of all, fake Phil is pleasant, cheerful, useful, and equipped to handle what lies ahead. Also, you’ll never know the difference, once I’ve fixed the matter of the floating and whatever it was that tipped you off.”

“Not doing it for me. Vaguely creepy, in fact.”

“Secondly,” it went on, “the real Phil could wait it out. He’ll be safe. Nothing will happen to him. If you finish this and come out on the other side, he’ll be waiting for you.”

This had more appeal for Dan. The not dragging Phil into whatever weird shit lay ahead part. Keeping him safe from it. Fake Phil was more equipped with whatever weird game was being played here. These were all positives.

And then Dan thought of Phil’s face if he ever found out that Dan had ventured into some unknown aforementioned weird shit without bringing Phil with him. Dan, actually, did not want to think of Phil’s face if this happened at all. It was the two of them. It had always been the two of them. Dan was probably not going to make it very far at all on his own, fake Phil or no fake Phil by his side.

Also, he couldn’t trust what creepy it-creature said about Phil waiting on the other side; creepy it-creature which had tried to trick him by wearing Phil’s face, creepy it-creature which was now inspecting its painted nails as it awaited Dan’s decision: pale baby blue, such an incongruous colour for such an incredibly congruous creature.

“Where’s Phil?” Dan demanded.

“Fine!” it said, downing the rest of the coffee in a gulp and swishing a tail to knock it into the sink. The mug didn’t swipe and crash, although it should’ve; it levitated dreamily, settled down onto the aluminum. “Good luck,” it added, sounding a bit more sincere. “He’s in the room. Sleeping Beauty it.” It was gone, suddenly, in a quiet rustle of feathers.

Panic swelled in Dan now, reaching for his throat, drowning out the last vestiges of the sleepy idea nestling in his brain that this was still a dream; if Phil wasn’t there, he’d have nobody to demand answers from. The wild rush from hallway to bedroom, then the relief at Phil’s form amongst the green-purple sheets, reassuringly, solidly there like it definitely hadn’t been when Dan had woken up, minutes ago. Moments? It felt like moments.

“Phil,” Dan said, crossing over. “Phil.” He shook him gently. Phil’s breathing was heavy and deep, his lashes shuttered close to his cheeks; he refused to wake.

What had they done to him? “Phil,” Dan said. “C’mon. Please. I can’t do this without you.” He kneeled on the floor, at Phil’s side, brushed hair away from his eyes, sudden, real panic making it hard to think. They’d probably put him in an enchanted sleep, the geek side of his mind supplied helpfully.

Enchanted sleep.

_Sleeping Beauty it._

“C’mon,” Dan muttered. “This is not a fairytale.”

He leaned down anyway, pressed his lips to Phil’s warm ones. Thank god they were warm. Thank god they were still warm. Phil’s eyelids fluttered, like the best cliche Dan had ever known, and he said, smiling sleepily, voice hoarse and sleep-ruined, “Hey.”

The panic finally subsiding, Dan could see with certainty that this was, in fact, the real Phil: the dried sliver of saliva on the corner of his mouth, the sleepy myopic blinking as he fumbled for his glasses. He finally put them on. Dan was still kneeling. Most of all, this was Phil in the way nothing and nobody else was Phil, and Dan could not explain how he knew this. He looked at Dan, then his brow furrowed at Dan’s expression.

“I don’t know how to break this to you, Phil,” Dan said, “but I think we might be in some kind of a weird adventure video game universe type thing.”

Phil took this in very calmly. “Well,” was all he said, then: “That explains why everything is alive.”

Dan didn’t understand this at first, but then he looked around and realised Phil was right: everything was alive. As Dan watched, Susan the houseplant rustled her leaves, minutely reached for the sunlight pouring through the window; the DVDs on Phil’s TV table vibrated with a strange intensity, as if trying to mirror the action in their plots. Lion, on Phil’s bedside table, gave a minuscule, blink and you’ll miss it, extremely feline yawn.

“It’s kind of amazing,” he said, which is not at all what he had thought he was going to say.

Phil smiled at him like he agreed. “So have you figured out what the point of the game is?” he asked, pushing the blankets off of himself. Dan got up from the floor, too. “How to win at it?”

“No,” Dan admitted. “No, I just. I woke up and you were gone, and I had to kiss you so the real you could wake up too.”

“Oh,” Phil said, musing. “That seems very fairy tale-like. Maybe it’s a story verse. With a plot and everything. Do you hear any narration?”

“No,” Dan said again. “No ‘Dan said,’ or anything, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Well, we’re not going to figure it out in bed,” Phil decided. He swung his legs over to the side, and brushed two of his knuckles against Lion’s chin, like it was the most natural thing. Lion made a satisfied purring noise, and nipped at Phil’s fingers when he stopped.

Susan was emitting vague, magical-looking golden dust motes in the light. Dan stared, fascinated.

In the bathroom, their toothbrushes looked almost pixelated, like the creature’s wings, in their vivid brightness of colour. They almost seemed to glow, in that strange light of a TV or laptop screen in the dark. Phil grabbed one and handed Dan his. It could have been any other ordinary day, brushing their teeth in companionable silence, except Dan could swear that their towels were whispering to each other, swaying in the non-existent breeze.

“So what do you want to do?” Phil asked around a mouth full of minty foam. “Should we go out? Explore?”

Dan considered this. He hadn’t thought about the world outside also maybe being different in this universe. “Yeah, good idea,” he said. He spat the foam out. So did Phil, who then stared thoughtfully at his contact lens case.

“It’s a glasses kind of game,” he said. “You think?”

“Definitely,” said Dan, who always liked Phil in glasses. “Hey,” as Phil started stripping for the shower.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing.”

“No, say it.” Phil paused in the middle of wrapping a towel around himself to look down. “Do I have pixels instead of a dick, like in the Sims?”

That startled a laugh out of Dan. “No. God. Is that something you’re worried about? No, I was just thinking... I’m glad you’re player two.”

Phil stepped into the shower before he answered. “I think. I hope, anyway,” he told Dan, “that in this game, we’re both player one.”

 

Showered and dressed and breakfasted (toaster humming a familiar Mariah Carey Christmas tune; Dan had looked at Phil until Phil had had the grace to look sheepish), they headed down, holding tight to the banister in case the stairs tried any strange Hogwarts-esque ideas. They behaved like stairs in the normally would, though, much to Dan’s relief, because elevated, moving ground and Phil didn’t seem like the greatest combination. He wondered how many lives they had in this game. He wondered what would happen if you lost them all, if you’d never return to real life. There had been a movie about this, Dan remembered. He’d never watched it, which seemed like a pretty devastating sort of mistake now.

Their street looked like it always did: trees and stone, shops and traffic; the usual London bustle. It was a sunny, cloudless day almost unnatural in its air of - its air of strange, placid cheeriness. Birds they couldn’t really see chirping in the distance, no intrusive drilling noise; notably, for quite a busy flow of traffic, a distinct lack of honking. As they stood on the familiar sidewalk and looked around, a woman hustled a little boy along. “And can we have ice cream after that?” he was asking, plaintive. She smiled at them briefly as they passed. “I’ll think about it,” she said.

“It’s a very nice day,” Phil said, and Dan knew what he meant.

A taxi slowed to a stop right in front of them. The window rolled down and a little face looked out; white teeth in a tanned face, smiling fit to burst. “Hello!” the face said. “Taxi’s here!”

Dan and Phil looked at each other. “Do we have a choice?” Dan asked.

The face was still smiling, but it looked somewhat offended at the question. “Of course you have a choice! You always have a choice. Everything here is a choice.”

Phil shrugged at Dan’s wordless eyebrow raise. “Might as well?” he said. “We said we’d go explore what it’s like.”

They climbed in the back. The little face belonged to a small man who was practically bouncing in his seat from how excited he was that they’d climbed into his car. “Don’t get many passengers!” he kept saying. “Don’t get many passengers at all, so nice to have you lovely boys here. And of course you’ll be wanting to go to the airport.”

“We will?” Phil said.

“Yes!” Mr Driver agreed, and he sped off. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” he enquired, and without waiting for an answer, “they predicted showers last night, but oh, look at all that lovely sunshine, which goes to show you, they only know half of what they’re talking about on the telly, and they predict things out of their arses for the rest of it. Makes you wonder how many other lies they’re telling, makes you wonder who’s really Prime Minister, doesn’t it? I mean, I’ve drove past Downing tens of times and I’ve never seen him pottering about the garden as he claims to do, very busy man of course, but oh, we’re here!”

He was right; they’d only started off seconds ago, but now Heathrow loomed, large and well-known and just as busy as ever. But Mr Driver sped and swerved and made Dan clutch fearfully at his seatbelt and Phil’s thigh, and they were at the entrance.

“Thank you,” Phil said, “how much do we owe you?”

Mr Driver looked offended again. “Free of charge!” he insisted, when they were on the curb and he was waving a frantic goodbye. “My pleasure to have you lovely boys in this old horse of mine!”

Which was just as well, because when they’d pulled up and Dan had automatically patted around in his pockets where he’d sworn he’d had his wallet, phone and keys when he’d left the house, he’d found them empty. “Hey,” he said, when the taxi was gone and Phil was still staring bemusedly after it, and patted Phil down. Nothing.

“No phone?” Phil asked, and smiled a bit. “Now I know we’re not going to survive this.”

They entered the airport, where the strange aura of cheeriness from their street still pervaded; tourists in a confused mess everywhere, families with kids on trolleys and bags trailing behind them, tired businesspeople striding along at the end of a flight a day long. But everyone still in high spirits, which was the thing, wasn’t it ?- the tourists confused, but giggling over their overweight luggage, the toddlers not crying but sucking on lollipops and their parents holding hands, all the people tired but somehow indefinably glad to be back. An airport that wasn’t... stressful, incredibly enough.

Dan said: “Wow,” and knew Phil would understand. “Hey, do you think it’s lulling us into a false sense of security?”

“Maybe. It’s weird,” Phil surmised, but he was looking at a baby a short way away waving a fat fist at him. He poked his tongue out and went cross-eyed at it. The baby gurgled delightedly. The mother turned to look at Phil and laughed, took the baby’s arm and made it wave more.

“There are quite a few children in this game,” he observed, when he’d done waving back and they set off, not quite sure where they were heading. “Oh, hey-”

He’d spotted a counter lit up, and a lady in a dark green hijab beckoning them forwards. “I guess we should-” Dan said after a look around, because she seemed quite insistent on it being them in particular. “Hello.”

“Welcome to Heathrow!” she announced chirpily. “If you’ll just choose your flight destination, I’ll get the boarding passes printed out immediately.”

“...choose?” Dan repeated. “We can choose?”

“But of course!” Her tag declared her name Anisha. “Anywhere. Any time. Any planet.”

“Any planet?” Phil started, with great enthusiasm, but Dan said: “Can we visit my mum?”

He hadn’t known he was going to say it. He was remembering the last time he’d seen her, Christmas; “Come back soon,” she’d said, like always, and he’d said, “yeah, okay, Mum,” with no real intention of soon being the kind of soon she wanted. But he was in a strange new world now, and he was thinking of this last parting, and he’d really kind of like to go and see his mum. He looked over at Phil.

“Can we?” Phil asked Anisha. His shoulder brushed Dan’s as he leaned over the counter a bit, a language Dan was familiar in. This was comfort, this meant Dan did not need to explain.

“Sure!” Anisha said, typing furiously away, and then she was handing them two boarding passes which were empty except for their names and DESTINATION: DAN’S MUM.

“Interesting destination,” Phil observed. “Very to the point.” They thanked Anisha, who told them their gate was straight to the left. Straight to the left they didn’t find the gate but the jet bridge immediately, and a smiling flight attendant ushering them in.

They were in first class. Which, nice. The engines started up as soon as they’d strapped on their seatbelts, and they were up in the air way too quickly for the normal rules of physics. “Champagne?” the flight attendant asked, but then there was a crackle of intercom and they jumped. “We hope you had a nice flight! Please join us again,” the captain’s booming voice invited. The fasten your seatbelt icon switched itself off.

“Aren’t we still up in the air?” Dan asked. Phil let out a stifled, hysterical giggle. “Perhaps another time!” the flight attendant said brightly, moving away with the bottle.

They stepped off the jet bridge and immediately into the warmth of Dan’s childhood home, where his mum was sitting in her favourite seat (near the fireplace - Dan had inherited his love of them from her), and when she saw them she opened her arms wide. “Baby!”

She smelled of jasmine laundry detergent and her hair tickled his face. It was soft and fluffy like she used to wear it years ago. This was her, undoubtedly; this was his mum as he remembered her. But it wasn’t his mum as he knew her now. There was something faded about her edges, a well worn blanket, a photograph you kept in your wallet. As if someone had passed a filter over her: 1973. This was either a forgotten memory of her, or one re-imagined. Dan hugged her back tightly anyway.

“Phil!” she said happily, and held out her arms for a hug as well. Phil came, after exchanging a glance with Dan; Dan’s mum had never actually hugged Phil. She ruffled his hair, she kissed his cheek. She wasn’t one for hugging much, in general.

“You came in time for peanut butter cookies,” she said, and led the way into the kitchen. _Go on_ , Phil mouthed. He was looking at the pictures on the walls. Dan realised that if he himself came back rarely, Phil had only been here a few times in all the years he'd known Dan. It wasn’t anything in particular: Dan’s family loved him. It was probably Dan, unconsciously not wanting to mix his life now with what he quietly deemed his past one.

Dan followed his mum. True to form, the peanut butter cookies were home made, in the way that most of Dan’s mum’s cooking was home made - with a little help from Pillsbury’s Ready To Bake Dough. Dan, as a kid, had been convinced that his mum baked the best cookies in the world. He’d boasted about it to all the other kids. He took one from the tray and let it melt in his mouth, smiling around the memory.

“How’re you, Mum?” he asked.

“The usual,” she said, waving a hand. “Your brother will be back in about an hour, you could wait for him.”

“No, I just - we came to check in on you,” Dan said.

“Oh, darling. Well, I’m fine, except Allison-” Allison was a neighbour his mum had been feuding with for most of Dan’s life, a feud so comfortable that it might as well be called a friendship now- “had the nerve to come around the other day and ask that I kindly prune my elms. I ask you. They aren’t anywhere near her driveway. Dan, I swear to god, that woman-”

Phil came to join them mid-rant. He took a cookie and sat down next to Dan and shook his head in commiseration at all the right places and told her about the neighbour who couldn’t remember their names. Dan tried to remember why he didn’t bring him back more often. He couldn’t quite recall.

 

Later, when they’d thanked her for the cookies and coffee and promised to visit again very soon, they stepped out the front door and back onto the jet bridge, back onto the strange flight which took a few seconds and back to the airport. Phil looked lost in thought the way back, but now he turned to Dan and asked: “Could we see my mum now?”

“Sure,” Dan said. “Sure, let’s ask Anisha.”

Anisha promptly granted their requests with two DESTINATION: PHIL’S MUM passes. The same short, abrupt, jolting trip, and then a chestnut brown front door familiar to Dan as well, and then Kathryn Lester was ushering them in, squeezing both of them in turn. She wasn’t memory-faded like Dan’s mum, whoch was interesting. She was animated and lively, Phil in her disjointed gestures, Phil in the way she immediately started nagging her son about something they were supposed to send Phil’s grandmother, from what Dan gathered.

“We’re leaving soon, Mum,” Phil told her, declining a seat. “Just wanted to make sure you’re still alive and stuff.”

“Thanks, Philip,” she answered, deadpan. “Dan, won’t you stay for a bit?”

Dan always wanted to stay. The Lesters’ house was bright and furnished with colourful, oddly placed knickknacks, it always smelled like something warm and vanilla, and the people there loved him because Phil loved him and like Phil loved him: quickly, unconditionally, expansive. Perhaps it was the way Lesters loved in general. Phil’s grandmother let him pick the channel whenever he was over; Martyn told him all the childhood stories Phil had buried too deep in his memory. He shook his head regretfully at her. “Oh, but you’re coming back Easter, right?” she asked, and they agreed, and she embraced them again.

On the plane, Phil mused over something in silence: outside, Dan saw nothing but clouds, even when the disembodied captain’s voice announced that he’d hoped they’d had a pleasant flight.

Dan nudged Phil. “Hm?” Phil responded. “Oh.” He unfastened his seatbelt. Dan let him alone, but on the walk back to the aiport, sure enough, he said: “I think-”

“I think,” he repeated, “that this is your game, Dan.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” Phil said, “that my mum was wearing the same blouse she was wearing on the day she met you. And that was probably how you remember your mum best. It’s your game, Dan.”

“It’s all in my head?” Dan said. He didn’t know if he liked this concept. He, of all people, knew how hard it was to leave his whirling vortex of a brain once you’d entered. But Phil was shaking his head.

“I didn’t say that.” He touched Dan’s elbow, steered him to the left instead of the right; Dan hadn’t been paying attention to where they were heading. “Not necessarily. I just meant. This is your game.”

Anisha greeted them, bright-eyed and looking like she hadn’t moved an inch. “Where to?”

“Can I?” Phil asked. Dan nodded assent. “You said any time?”

“I did!” Anisha exclaimed agreeably.

“The Manchester flat. When we were living there, I mean. Anisha?”

“Yes?”

“Could we go back to a specific time? The day I checked it out when Dan was back home with his parents?”

Anisha’s face creased in confusion as she looked at her screen. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I know what I said, but it seems-”

“That’s fine,” Phil assured her quickly. “Just back in oh-eleven is fine.”

“Just a sec,” she said, and indeed a moment later had produced two boarding passes: MANCHESTER 2011.

 

The plane trip this time took a little longer; the plane managed to do a kind of loop de loop which had Dan squeezing his eyes shut and grasping for Phil’s arm. “I can’t believe I’m going to die in my own head,” he said to Phil, but when he opened his eyes, the exit door was open and there they were on the sidewalk outside the flat they’d shared for a year. Phil tested the doorknob, looked at Dan; Dan nodded and he pushed open the door, drawing back all of a sudden.

“What is it?” Dan hissed, for Phil was staring in wonderment, but not in, from what Dan could observe, any sort of fear. He moved past Phil to peer in, and stepped smartly back into him again.

In the apartment were multiple Dan and Phil's, and as Dan watched he realised they were not solid forms but memories, a myriad of past selves bustling around the flat. Dan slumping ontot he sofa, turning on the telly, Phil arriving a few moments later with a mug of a steaming beverage. Dan walking past in a towel; Phil pushing a window open and peering down at the street. Them, the thems they’d been, over the months they’d lived there.

Dan stepped back in. He wanted to see this. He watched a Phil attempt to hang up a picture, watched it fall to the floor when he stepped back. A Dan laughed at him. They both flickered from view a moment later, only to be replaced by a Dan and Phil walking down the hallway, Dan’s memory and echoes of their voices indicating that they were deep in discussion over the plot of a movie. Dan backed into the wall to avoid them. He looked over at his Phil, who was wandering over to the kitchen area. Dan followed.

A memory of Dan stirred carrots, broccoli and corn in a frying pan. Phil lounged on the breakfast bar, swinging his legs. Dan remembered this conversation: they’d been talking about London. As he watched, past Phil hopped off the kitchen counter, pressed his front all against Dan’s back, wrapped his arms around Dan’s waist. Dan continued stir-frying, but he had a half smile on. They couldn’t hear what past Phil was whispering into past Dan’s ear, but Dan didn’t need to: _we could do this_ , he’d murmured, low. _Together._

Phil obviously remembered, too: Dan felt the warmth of his hand curl and hold onto Dan’s fingers. Discussing London!Dan and Phil faded from view, so Dan and Phil walked back out, in the direction of the bedrooms, when something caught Dan’s eye: himself, pacing up and down on the balcony outside, on the phone, looking agitated. Dan recognised that look; Dan remembered the trail: one, two, three, pause, turn, four five six seven eight turn, throw his hands up in agitation. His figuring out his fucking life phase.

Phil squeezed his fingers, wordless. He was right. Dan could have watched that conversation, mouth shaping out indiscernible words that would always be recognisable to him. He turned to their bedrooms. Phil was right.

There, he breathed. Phil’s bed contained a Phil on his laptop, a Dan curled up beside him, lazily scrolling through his phone. Not a memory that stood out particularly: one of the many nights they’d spent in here, nights indistinguishable from each other but all exceptional in the fact that each one had been a gift. They watched as their forms on the bed faded, to be replaced with a Phil rather lower on the mattress, Dan with his fists clenched in his hair, back arched.

“Voyeur,” Phil said quietly, by his side, the first words he’d spoken since they’d entered the Manchester flat, 2011, and Dan grinned. “Shall we?” he asked. They stepped out and back into the approximation of a plane again.

“It’s your turn to choose,” Phil informed him a few minutes later.

“Oh,” Dan said. “Oh, it is?” He drummed his knuckles on Anisha’s counter. Anisha waited patiently. Up close, Dan could see the embroidery on her hijab, the folds of pink chiffon. “You said something about other planets?” he asked. Phil looked extremely gratified.

“I’ll check what’s available,” she promised. Dan leaned over to peer at her computer: apparently his mind’s games were brandless.

“I just want you to know that we’re not equipped to deal with aliens,” Dan said. Phil dismissed this with a careless hand gesture. “You know the rules,” Dan said. “I only have to be faster than you.”

They both knew it was an utter lie.

The plane juddered to a halt after a few minutes more than they’d been expecting; they’d had time for champagne and cashews, this time. They stepped up into soft foamy ground, and looked down. It was silvery and translucent, it was oil on water, coloured like a shaft of sunset through a windowpane. Creatures darted here and there underneath their feet, like sea animals. One darted up, nuzzled its wet nose at Dan's ankle; he stumbled back. Phil was already bending down.

"Hello!" thing-creature was squeaking at him. A dolphin, but with black and white panda fur.

"Hello," Phil returned, quite clearly delighted.

 

They returned much later smelling strongly of durian (a situation with the gibbons), their hair sticky with sea salt, sticking up from the wind. Anisha smiled. "Fun trip?"

"Pretty amazing."

"I want to go back!" Phil said. He brushed some sand from his ear, nudged Dan, _go on._  
  
“Future us,” Dan said. His heart rate was quickening. He’d been searching himself for some time now. But this was it. This would be the future he wanted. And the thing was. Here was the thing.

He didn’t know himself. He’d never known himself. He was a million different shifting people, always. He was never sure. But he’d always been sure of Phil, even when he hadn’t been sure of himself. It was the not being sure of himself that worried him: this would be the future he saw for himself, the self he was still getting to know. This was the future that he’d not yet figured out. It was impossible that this could be true, and yet Anisha handed them their boarding passes.

“’The Future.’ Very to the point,” Phil said. “Come on, then, Marty.” He rested his palm between Dan’s shoulderblades, warm, brief. He remembered the night before, as well. He remembered what had been said, and what hadn’t.

“Right behind you, Doc,” Dan returned, and filed Phil’s smile away like a gift. He took a deep breath. And followed Phil to their gate.

When they stepped off the jet bridge this time, it was through the front door of a white-walled, comfortably-furnished living room; posters of classics on the wall: Uma, Iron Man; a flourishing lush-leaved houseplant in the corner. Phil drew in a sharp intake of breath, but before he could speak, a dark-haired, dark-eyed little child arrived by way of barreling herself into Dan’s back. As Dan watched, she bounced back, bounded forward to hug Phil’s leg this time, and announced: “You’re home! Finally I’ve been waiting so long guess what happened Melissa pushed me off the monkey bars and I fell and it hurts Daddy look.” She finally steadied herself enough to push up her dungarees and show them a plaster on her knee. “This is a boring one,” she appealed to Phil. “Can I have an animal one please?”

Like Dan, Phil was still staring, but he’d recovered enough presence of mind to kneel and look at her scrape. “Okay,” he told her. “Of course. Lead the way.” She skipped through the hallway, the scrape obviously not stinging as much as she’d made out, Phil at her heels. Dan, keeping up, was looking at the pictures in the hallway. Him and Phil, him and the child. Phil and a baby.

Phil was taking down a first aid kid covered in Marvel stickers when Dan arrived in the kitchen (dark brown double-doored cabinets, granite countertops. Dining chairs in a variety of bright colours). “Choose one,” he was saying.

The child thoughtfully inspected the box. “Giraffe.”

“Good choice,” Phil agreed. “Their saliva has antiseptic properties. That helps them heal faster when their tongues are pricked by thorns.”

“Gross,” she said. “Giraffe saliva.”

“I heard it’s extra thick,” Phil said, smiling. She pulled a face, and Phil patted her leg. “There. All done.”

“Thanks, Papa,” she said, and she might have missed the look that crossed Phil’s face at this, but Dan hadn’t. “Want to see what we did in school today?”

She was looking between both of them, so Dan volunteered, “Sure,” and she skipped off towards what Dan presumed was her room, Dan and Phil following close behind. Velvet orange letters spelled out ISLA'S ROOM on the door, so it was a pretty good guess.

"We wrote our names in cursive!" she exclaimed. "I did it just like you teached - taught me. And teacher said it was excellent." She glowed with pride.

"Your teacher's right," Phil said. He traced the staggering, excitable handwriting across the paper with his finger. Isla Lorelei Howell-Lester.

"It was like one of the longest but I finished the quickest," she said. Dan reflected on how very like the self he had been at a young age she was, all fast-talking and attention-demanding.

Her face changed, suddenly. "Oh... I forgot to tell Mrs Holowitz I was going back."

"Oh, dear," said Dan. "Will she be worried?"

"I don't know. Prob'ly. She always fusses so can you come with me to tell her you're back home safe so it's fine."

Phil looked at Dan. Dan shrugged.

"Alright, love," said Phil.

She looked happy - probably that they weren't upset with her - and then considering. "I ran here, my legs are tired, will you carry me?" she asked, pressing the advantage. She held her arms out to Phil. Probably this was the parent who obliged her more easily. Her face had taken on a pleading expression: puppy dog eyes, pout of the mouth, very Dan, an expression Phil had built up a defense over the years to from Dan but apparently it didn't work on Isla, because he kneeled and she hopped onto his back like a monkey.

She had dark curls and his pleading pout, but she also had big eyes the colour of a storm. Dan wondered what virtual combination of DNA this was. He wished real world biology had figured it out.

"Lead the way, cap'n," Phil said, and she giggled and pointed down the stairs.

It turned out they didn't have to travel far to meet Mrs Holowitz; as they opened their front door, this time to a lawn and a suburban street, a plump lady in a pastel patchwork quilt of a dress was hurrying over, peaces and pink. She was shimmering at the edges slightly like Anisha and Mr Driver, too vivid in a way that the child, even as an impossible and virtual and biologically impossible combination of genes, was not.

Dan had ruffled her hair as they'd bounded down the stairs. She was warm and real and her hair was silk, soft. She smelled like what shampoo companies thought mangoes smelled like, and detergent, and clean sweat. Dan wondered how she felt on Phil's back, a living weight, inescapable proof of two people's love. Dan wanted to ask her so _much_.

"Isla! Isla," Mrs Holowitz said in slightly shrieky tones. "So sorry, dears, I turn around for one minute..."

This was addressed to Dan and Phil. Isla was busy clambering off Phil's back and accidentally treading on Phil's feet in the process, so Dan said: "It's all good, Mrs Holowitz, thank you so much for looking after her," and the woman smiled.

"Of course, of course. You two need time off too. Always happy to help, she's a delight when she doesn't pull a disappearing act," she said. Isla had the grace to look penitent. "I'll head off now, you can start with dinner."

"Thank you again," Phil added. Isla waved. "I'm sorry Mrs Holowitz, promise I'll tell you next time, I was just excited when I saw them back."

"It's fine, my dear, I'll see you soon," she said, and turned and walked back along the sidewalk. Somehow she was swallowed up by the sunset in the horizon, like she'd disappeared into a painting. Dan decided not to think about that too much; there were more pressing things to attend to.

Like dinner, and the familiar sight of Phil and his Gourmet Geek apron, apparently still a fixture in the future, and the unfamiliar sight of the kitchen and Isla on a stool, mixing the mashed potatoes, and how it none of it seemed unfamiliar at all. It could have just been another day in the Dan and Phil household, only with the added chatter of a five year old talking about her day and her friends and enquiring about whether frogs had buttholes. Katie said they did, but wouldn't water get in?

"When humans swim, water doesn't get in their buttholes," Phil reasoned, dropping tofu into the stir fry.

"Okay. Alright. Enough talk about frog orifices before dinner," Dan said, standing up.

"What's orifices?" Isla wanted to know.

"Holes in your body," said Dan. "Let's stretch our legs first, huh? Y'alright with dinner? I just want to look around."

"Yeah, I'm almost done." Phil waved them on with the spatula.

Walking out the kitchen, Isla folded her hand into his. She was so small. She was so warm. They went to her room, and Dan passed a hand over the colourful dinosaur-themed sheets, looked up at the stars at the wall.

"Isla?" Dan said. Isla, humming and scribbling something in a notebook, swivelled. "Yes, Daddy?"

"This might sound like a strange question, but do you find me a satisfactory parent?"

Isla scrunched up her nose. Phil's nose, Dan realised, long and slightly beaky, endearing on both him and her.

"Sorry, I mean," Dan said, "do you think I-"

"I know what satisfactory means, Dad," Isla said, rolling her eyes. "And I still think you are an extremely pleasing parent, even if Nora does have the new eBox."

"Does she now?" Dan said. "Also - how often would you say I ask you this?"

"Like a lot," Isla said. She leapt up from her chair and clambered into Dan's lap to hug him suddenly, all growing limbs and spontaneous movement. "Love you. Is it time for dinner yet."

Dinner was stir fry and Ribena and chocolate ice cream for afters. Dan washed up while Isla helped keep the cutlery, and Phil got a pass on after-dinner activitiesbecause he'd cooked. There was a radio on the counter, an older one; they were playing an old The National, _famous angels never come through England-_

Then they went to the living room, where Isla lay on the carpet on her stomach, bent over Tolkien, of all things. Dan's kid. _Their_ kid. Phil dropped his head on Dan's shoulder. He yawned. He sighed.

"We have to go," Dan said, because somehow he knew they had to.

"We could stay here a while, though," Phil said, looking longingly at Isla, her curly head bent over her book.

"I think we need to go," Dan said. "I think that's important. Because we haven't gotten here yet." He slipped his fingers through Phil's. Phil nodded.

"Bye," Dan said softly to their daughter's back. Phil didn't say anything, but bit his lip and squeezed Dan's hand back.

 

"We can go home now?" Dan asked Anisha.

"You could have gone home anytime if you wanted," she said worriedly. Dan wondered how true this was. "Did you feel like you were forced to stay? I didn't mean to-"

"You're fine, Anisha," Phil assured her. "Thanks, really, for all your help."

She smiled at them. "It's been a pleasure having you both on board." Her outline started flickering vaguely, a bulb almost spent. When they reached the doors of the airport and looked back, the counter was empty. The rounded lights illuminating it were off.

 

"Hello! Good to see you back home safe," Mr Driver greeted them. He tipped his hat. "You hear such horror stories about tourists. All the work of the government, of course."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course, my boy."

"How long have you been driving this taxi?" Phil enquired.

"Oh, years," the driver said. "Years and years. And the years before that, probably."

"Could you stop if you wanted? Change jobs?"

"We could all, couldn't we?" he said musingly, which wasn't quite an answer. "And yet I would never. I love this. It isn't a job. But you understand, Phil."

Phil's hand found Dan's again. It was more physical affection in a day than they'd shown in public for a long, long time.

"Yes, I do," he answered Mr Driver, and held on.

 

Dan blinked, looked around: Phil was gone. Not-Phil, still blurry around the edges, was on their sofa, one arm and a wing thrown over the back. “Hey,” he said. “How was your day?”

“It wasn’t much of a game,” Dan said. He walked slowly over to the fireplace.

It considered this, inky feathers rustling contemplatively. “Maybe,” it allowed. “Did I say it was a game or did you?”

“I... don’t remember,” Dan admitted.

“Neither do I,” it said. “It could’ve been a game if you want. I’m sure you accumulated plenty of points. You’re here now, anyway, so congratulations on surviving, if that was the point of it. I hope you had fun?”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

It pouted. With Phil’s features shuddering over its actual face, a face Dan didn’t know he wanted to see, it looked extremely strange. “Say you had fun. Don’t be such a killjoy.”

“It was weird,” Dan said. “What can I say? It was weird.”

It looked delighted at this. “Thank you! And on that note...” It got up, stretched. Its feathers shivered happily. “And on that note, it was lovely meeting you, Daniel.” He pronounced it Dan-yul, a cowboy from Old Hollywood's version of the Wild West. Its feet still didn’t quite touch the ground.

“I’m sure you’re in my head,” Dan said.

“Of course. If you say so.” It seemed like it intended to use the front door this time.

“Where’s Phil?”

Not-Phil rolled its eyes. “You know where he is. But oh, yes. Thank you for reminding me. One more thing: would you rather he forget about all of this? And before you shake your head, not just all of this. Last night. You could start afresh when he asks about it for what he thinks is the first time. And this could all be a rather interesting dream you had last night.”

Dan couldn’t lie. He was pretty tempted by this. Phil would ask him again, in a couple of days, maybe a month. And Dan would have the right answers this time.

“Nicely played,” he told it. “But no, I’ve watched Eternal Sunshine.”

It smiled, and opened their front door. His nails were pink now, salmon, the colour of Anisha's hijab and Mrs Holowitz's dress.

“I’m not going to ask whether you’re sure,” it said, and shut the door behind it.

Dan returned to their bedroom. He didn’t run, because Phil would be there.

 

This time, when he kissed him - lingering and gentle just because he could - Phil opened his eyes straightaway, and smiled, and said: “I remember,” before Dan could ask.

“Good,” said Dan. He had to say this, but before he did, he impulsively leaned in and kissed Phil’s eyebrow. Phil’s eyes slid shut again, and he kept smiling, a gentle curve of his lips. “Okay, like, but, listen. I wanted to say-”

“It’s fine!” Phil said. “I was there. I remember.” He reached up to press his palm to Dan’s cheek.

“I have to say it,” Dan insisted. “Because otherwise it doesn’t count. I think that’s what it means, and I think it makes sense. If you don’t say it, a lot of things don’t count when they do and they should. And you should know that I want my future to be hopelessly entangled with yours. You should know that I want all the things you said you wanted.”

He took a deep breath. Phil’s touch was an anchor on his skin, so he turned his face into it and kept talking, slightly muffled. “But you should also know that I didn’t know that that was what I wanted until I saw it for myself. So when I said I didn’t know last night, Phil, I meant it. When I said I needed time, I think I still do. But you’re it for me, you know? I never meant to make you think that that wasn’t true. I’m an idiot if you ever thought that. Out of all the things, I think you have to understand this.”

“I understand,” Phil said. He didn’t move his hand away, and Dan held onto his wrist. He was still kneeling by the side of the bed. This felt like confession in the most loving way: pre-forgiven. Nothing to forgive.

“I’m trying to say that I need time to figure myself out, but I’ve always had this figured out, I think. That feels like it should be the same thing, but it isn’t. But you’re it. You’re always it. When I figure it out, you'll still be it."

Phil's thumb caressed his skin. He said, "Dan," in a voice that meant Dan should listen, so Dan opened his eyes and did.

"That house we saw. In that future. I've seen it," Phil said. "And you couldn't have."

Dan peered at him. "What does that mean?"

"I didn't bookmark it. I looked at it, and thought, I want to live with him in this house, I will live with him and have this future, and because that was presumptuous, because I wanted it so much, I closed the tab. I wiped the history."

He sighed. "Dan. That was probably the future I wanted. I don't want to impose it upon you. That's not what I want. That's not what I meant to make you feel like I was doing last night. You figure whatever you need out for yourself, and then you come to me, and we'll talk it through together. Because you're sort of it for me, too."

"Oh." There was a pause. Phil's thumb stroked his jaw again, then dropped. He looked up at the ceiling.

Dan didn't quite know how to feel. On the one hand, it made sense; Dan was still considering his future. He still stayed up nights figuring this shit out. He'd been surprised that it had seemed so simple in this game he'd thought was his; surprised, but pleased. Now it was all murky again.

Which was, Dan figured, okay.

Some things you needed to figure out on your own. White picket fence and dog and marriage and 2.5 wasn't clearly spread out like a pretty tableau for everyone.

And yet: he had a constant variable, which made him better off than most people. He climbed on the bed and spread himself all over Phil, the way he'd done a lot when he was younger and feeling especially clingy. Phil let out an "Oof," but his hands rubbed reassuringly up and down Dan's back.

And yet: "She was such a lovely kid," he said, which was not a statement of sorts, but Phil would understand. Phil probably missed her already, just as much, if not more, than Dan did.

And Dan would figure it out.

"She had your hair," Phil answered.

Dan nuzzled his face into his neck. "Babe," Phil said, affectionate, but with that thread of amused self-awareness, those lingering remnants of _we are not these people anymore, but I still remember._

"The room is still alive," Phil said. Dan turned his head to look. Lion flicked his tail at them cheerfully. Inside Phil's drawers, something rustled.

"I have a theory about this," he said. "I'll tell you in the morning." Phil would be there, and maybe they'd forget, but they'd do it together.

"Remind me," Dan told him sleepily, "to book tickets for us back to my place..."

"Okay," Phil said, kissing his hair. "You're heavy," he informed him. Dan was already drifting off to sleep.

 

 **~*~**  
_now I see on the other side of the dam_  
_the same old scenery I always see_  
_oh, inundated by water the inverted moon sinks_  
_river low*_

 

**Author's Note:**

> *River Low / トクマルシューゴ by Tokumaru Shugo
> 
> i had this idea floating around for a bit in my head and it would not leave me be. i'm thinkin of writing a lil coda detailing what exactly it was they did in that other planet trip, but anyway hmu below and tell me what you thought x


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